Quote:
Originally Posted by John41
the NY Times editorial stated Military Celebrates White Supremacy because of Ft Benning Georgia. This on the day that honors soldiers black and white who gave up their lives for the First Amendment that protects the press. What a disgraceful paper that encourages vandalism like you experienced.
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I read that editorial yesterday, the original one, and that is NOT what it said. The editorial pointed out that a number of military bases opened in the South during World War I were named after Confederate generals who earlier served in the U.S. Army as a salve to Southerners who were upset that African-Americans would be on those bases training. The Army also deliberately choose Southerners with a record of favoring discrimination to train the African-American troops. That was a different time, and we wouldn’t do that now. At least, that’s what Colin Powell says. One of these bases was named after a Confederate general who was at one point after the Civil War the national head of the Klan. That’s not right.
Well, that was a different time, as I’ve said. What I found convincing about the editorial was this: every one of those Confederate generals honored with his name on a military base swore an oath of allegiance to the United States of America, but turned traitor against his country and took up arms against it. I know people who have never forgiven Jane Fonda for visiting Hanoi during the Vietnam war. How can a true American forgive these traitorous generals?
And let me qualify this by saying that not only was I born in Virginia, but Robert E. Lee is a blood relative of mine. In many ways he was a deeply honorable man, but he made a huge mistake by fighting for a state to which he had taken no oath of allegiance against the government he’d sworn to protect. I had ancestors who fought for the confederacy and for the Union, and some of them died. They enlisted, and they hadn’t taken the oath taken at West Point or Annapolis, so that’s different, maybe. When I was in grade school in California I enjoyed reading biographies of Lee, Pickett, Bedford Forrest, Beauregard, and more. But is it appropriate to honor people who took up arms against our country?
(I should add that while I think hanging a Trump flag goes against The Villages’ protocol on flags and showed a lack of sensitivity, I am even more against people doing damage to the property of others. You are right to be incensed about that. Having our properties treated with respect is part of why we live in The Villages, right? And we shouldn’t do to others what we would not want done to us.)